


In The Beginning

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 366 [2]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Banking, Cambridge, College, Disguise, England (Country), Family, Fan-fiction, Framing Story, Friendship, Guns, Infidelity, Inheritance, Johnlock - Freeform, London, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Oxford, Slow Burn, Theft, Trains, Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 09:14:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21847282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: The Complete Cases Of Sherlock Holmes And John Watson. All 366 cases plus assorted interludes, hiatuses, codas &c.1874-1876. Holmes's and Watson's first four cases before they moved in together; the Gloria Scott and its regrettable ending, the Tarleton tragedy with its seemingly invisible double-murderer, a gun gambit that goes painfully wrong for someone, and the case of Doctor Moore Agar with his somewhat unusual tree decorations which Holmes solved without even being there!
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Elementary 366 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1555741
Kudos: 13





	1. Contents

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vignahara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vignahara/gifts), [jaid_diah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaid_diah/gifts).



> This series is completely written and will be updated daily until done.  
> New cases are marked ☼.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Contents page.

** 1874 **

**Interlude: Advent**   
by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire  
_John Hamish Watson is coming to town_

**Case 1: The Adventure Of The Gloria Scott**  
by Mr. John Watson, Esquire  
_Skulduggery at Oxford as someone tries to steal a ship_

**Interlude: Changes**   
by Mr. John Watson, Esquire  
_Watson becomes aware that something has changed in his life_

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** 1875 **

**Case 2: The Tarleton Tragedy**  
by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire  
_Double murder in Cambridge – by an invisible killer!_

**Interlude: New Builds**   
by Mr. John Watson, Esquire  
_The doctor's life evolves, and Great Britain buys a canal_

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** 1876 **

**Case 3: Guns And Roses ☼**   
by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire  
_Holmes helps a friend by preventing someone from being framed_

**Case 4: The Adventure At St. Oswald's End**   
by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire and Mr. John Watson, Esquire  
_Holmes solves a case from four hundred miles away_

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	2. Interlude: Advent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1874\. Someone is perhaps not exactly at their best in the mornings.

_[Narration by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire]_

I stared suspiciously across the table at Stamford. I had had a rough night, not helped by some strange dream about someone who looked like me and yet was not me, which was of course quite illogical. No-one looked like me, I was sure of that. Yet now my room-mate was forking me over extra bacon.

“What do you want?” I asked _(not_ snarled). 

“You said to remind you that our visitor is arriving this afternoon”, he said, looking far too awake for any gentleman Before Coffee. “My friend John Watson, down from Northumberland for a few weeks before he starts his course at St. Bart's.”

That had to be the medical fellow whose mother had died earlier this year, and that Father had helped out. I had thought that rather odd – our only link to the Watson family had been that Mrs. Edith Watson had been a friend of my father's first wife Mary Kerr and that marriage had ended after less than a year with her death in childbirth delivering my stepbrother Campbell. Then there was the fact that my father had to have arranged for this John Watson's friend Stamford to be my room-mate when I had started here two years ago, although to be fair the lamp-post was tolerable enough apart from his eternal whining about my untidiness, my general appearance, my lack of social graces, my arguable incoherence before coffee of a morning, my violin-playing, my pistol-shooting, my....

 _Why was I putting up with him again?_ Oh yes, he remembered that I liked bacon of a morning, and coffee. That covered the most important things in life.

“I shall be out all day looking into this run of thefts around the colleges”, I said. “I will not be back till late so I will likely see him tomorrow. I am sure that he will somehow contain his terrible disappointment at that.”

He shook his head at me but smiled. More importantly, he passed me the ketchup! As if I should be the least bit interested about some fellow that I would likely never see again in my entire life!

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	3. Case 1: The Adventure Of The Gloria Scott

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1874\. Doctor John Watson travels to Oxford to meet his friend Mr. James Stamford (at the railway station) and the latter's room-mate Mr. Sherlock Holmes (rolling around on the floor in the dark!). A slew of thefts across several of the university's colleges ends in both a shocking act and an unexpected departure.

_[Narration by Mr. John Watson, Esquire]_

Our first ever meeting (and some horrible blue-eyed bastard sniggering nearby says that I _have_ to mention this, damn him!) began with my rolling around on the floor in a darkened room and him pinning me down. My soon to be ex-friend considered this case one of his few failures even though he indubitably solved it; it was the actions of others putting money and status before what was right which hit him hard. Although they paid a belated price for their actions, it curtailed our first time together.

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I must have fallen asleep on the comfortable train – thank heaven (or at least Sir Edward Holmes) for enabling me to travel the whole way in first-class – because I woke to find the gentleman opposite me gently shaking me awake. 

“Sir?” he said, looking worried at having woken me. “We are approaching Oxford, our last stop until Birmingham. I do not know if this is your destination but I did not wish you to miss it.”

I covered up a yawn and thanked him. It would have been awkward to have wasted several hours travelling all the way to Birmingham and back, let alone having to explain to Stamford that I had nodded off on the train. We were pulling into the platform now and sure enough I saw my friend's inimitable form striding along the train looking for me (he knew me well enough to have foreseen the possibility of my napping at precisely the wrong time). 

Stamford greeted me and we took a cab to his small but well-kept quarters at the college. Or I should say partially well-kept; one side of the room was very tidy but the other side looked as if a tornado had passed through it and then passed back again. He saw my astonishment – I had cajoled him more than once on his tidiness fetish back in our Northumberland days which made my own attempts to keep order look restrained - and laughed.

“Holmes and I have our own bedrooms, but share this common area”, he explained. “You can almost see the dividing line down that floorboard! He is a little eccentric but he is good at heart. He is out now, most probably at the library doing research on something or other.”

I knew that Holmes's degree was in Humanities, and although a six year course his progress had been such that he had completed three years' work in his first two at the college. That was some achievement at an Oxford college.

“He is a tolerable room-mate then?” I asked. Stamford had mentioned once that his room-mate tended to be a little disorganized, but this was some way beyond that. My friend smiled.

“He is actually the only man who had never objected to me playing the pipes”, he smiled, gesturing towards the set of Northumbrian bagpipes on the chair (I thought that their presence maybe explained why the suite was so isolated from the rest of the rooms). “But then he does play his violin at times although he is very good at it.”

“Then those times apart I am really looking forward to some peace and quiet during my time here”, I said collapsing into a fireside chair. “The funeral and sorting out the estate were some way beyond trying, considering that Stevie and I had so little. Thank heavens that I had Sir Edward Holmes behind me; he sent his own lawyer up to spend a week sorting everything out.”

 _(I might say here that I had been extremely fortunate in one aspect of my poor mother's passing, namely that Stevie and I had inherited a large sum of money from our maternal grandfather Mr. Mark Campbell. That far-sighted gentleman, rightly seeing that any money he gave directly to his daughter would shortly thereafter be in the pockets of some Northumbrian innkeeper via that of her feckless husband, had left a large sum of money in trust to the two of us so my father had been unable to touch it. I had feared that the costs of doctors for my mother's illness might have destroyed it but there had been enough left to set Stevie up with a small place of his own in Edinburgh as part of his lawyer training – I suspected that Sir Edward Holmes may have helped there – and for me to continue and finish my medical training as well)_.

“You are very welcome here”, he said, sitting down opposite me. “I am fairly sure that you will have a quiet enough time - unless of course our mystery thief strikes again.”

I looked at him in surprise.

“Thief?” I asked.

“Yes”, he said. “It has all been very strange. But you do not want to hear about....”

“Tell me about it”, I urged as he folded his long limbs into a chair.

“I thought that you wanted peace and quiet?” he smiled, raising an eyebrow at me. 

I scowled at him and he laughed. 

“All right”, he said, standing up. “I will make us both a coffee – it is fortunate that Holmes does not mind me using his things provided I tell him when we are running low; believe me you do _not_ want to see him when he is minus his morning beans! – then I will tell you all about it.”

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“Queens was the first incident about three weeks ago”, my friend began, sipping his coffee. “Someone broke into their library and stole an old book about Greek naval warfare. Not a very valuable one which was an odd thing; there were much more expensive books there for the taking. But the thief only took the one although they had time for more; the theft was not discovered until the middle of the following day. the gap that they left was not covered up in any way so it could have remained unnoticed for even longer.”

“Go on”, I urged.

“A week later Corpus Christi got hit. Someone stole a small painting of an old-time Elizabethan warship from the museum storeroom. A bit more valuable than the book and again they left the door of the cupboard where the painting had been stored ajar. Almost as if they did not care that their thievery was spotted. There was one particularly valuable painting that the thieves walked right past and it is quite famous round here, so they must surely have known about it.”

“A naval connection between the stolen items?” I asked.

“That was what the authorities thought”, he said, “and last week it looked like they were right when the villains struck at Lincoln. Bolder this time; a valuable large silver tureen was taken from the main hall. It was decorated with a naval battle scene from the Punic Wars. Worth a pretty penny it was; I saw it one time.”

“How bizarre!” I exclaimed. “Someone has a vendetta against the navy?”

“Holmes is sure that he can work out who is behind it….” he began but stopped as there was a knock at the door and a piece of paper was pushed under it. He went across to pick it up and sighed.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Professor Turnberry wants to see me about my course options”, he groused. “It's not even term time yet but Professor Millard who was going to teach one of my subjects has been laid up after an accident and I need to choose something else. I had thought to have at least another week to make a decision.”

“You go”, I said. “I shall unpack and freshen up.”

He nodded and left.

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It was already getting dark when Stamford had left and when he returned he saw me settled into the small spare room, which was basically a cupboard with pretensions. Still it was clean, there was a bed and I was exhausted after my long journey. My meeting with my benefactor's son would have to be delayed; the absent Holmes had sent a note to say that he was heading down to Abingdon for some reason. Stamford had remarked that such behaviour was typical of the fellow. 

As I lay there, I mused in my last few moments on one small aspect of my mother's passing which had troubled me ever so slightly. Training as I was to be a doctor I was already developing a sense for when people were not quite being straight with me, and when I had mentioned to Sir Edward Holmes's lawyer that my connection with his was that my mother had been friends with the baronet's first wife, there had been the slightest of pauses before he had agreed. I puzzled over it for a few moments until tiredness overcame me and I slept.

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I woke with a start and realized that it was still dark, the tiny room partly lit by the moonlight coming through the thin curtain. I wondered what had woken me until I heard the sound of someone in the main room. It could not be Stamford – the fellow could sleep through an apocalypse! – and could not be the absent Holmes as he was down in Abingdon, so who was it? Grabbing my walking-stick† as a makeshift weapon I made for the door.

Sure enough there was a figure moving around the writing-desk where I knew Stamford kept his wallet. I bit back a growl and moved stealthily towards the fellow...

The next moment I felt the stick wrenched from my hand and I was thrown to the floor. The intruder was on top of me and despite my struggles – I had measured that he was slightly taller but lighter than me – he was easily holding me down. I managed a sque... very manly call for help and was mightily relieved when, miracle of miracles, Stamford staggered out of his bedroom. He looked (as ever) like death warmed over but he would save me from....

_“Holmes?”_

Oh.

The figure pinning me down was off me before I realized it. I tried to get my breath back and to maintain what little dignity I had left. Which judging from my friend's slow smile was not that much.

“You must be Stamford's friend”, 'Holmes said and he had a deep voice that belied his youthful appearance. “Why did you attack me?”

“Me attack you?” I said hotly. _“You_ were the one creeping round the place in the pitch dark!”

“Holmes does not like bright lights”, Stamford said (I just knew that he would get a whole lot of mileage teasing me over this). “Besides he has the most excellent night vision - as I think you just found out the hard way!”

I scowled and pulled myself to my feet. Stamford's room-mate was a tall and rather scruffy fellow, and I felt in some way that I had seen him somewhere before – yes, he reminded me a little of the fellow who had woken me on the train before Oxford, although the latter had had blond hair cut short. This fellow looked as if he belonged more on a park bench from his bedraggled appearance.

“Bed!” Holmes said sourly. “My trip to Abingdon was fruitless but I managed to catch a goods train from Radley.”

He slouched off to what was presumably his room and banged the door behind him. Stamford grinned.

“Well”, he said, “you certainly made an impression. _On the floor!”_

I followed my attacker's example and stormed ( _not_ flounced) off to my room, ignoring the chuckle from behind me.

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My next lesson in all things Holmes came rather too few hours later at breakfast. I was only half-awake and sat at the dining-table when Stamford brought in a tray. I looked at him in surprise.

“The servants bring round the food”, he said, “but Holmes is five miles beyond horrible if he does not have his coffee first thing. Especially after a late night.”

“Surely he cannot be that bad?” I said.

“Cof-fee!”

I jumped and let out what was definitely another very manly expression of surprise, if possibly a high-pitched one from a soon to be ex-friend's smirk. My scruffy attacker from the night before had somehow materialized right behind me and had reached over to grab the mug of steaming coffee. I winced as he drank it straight down, somehow without setting fire to his mouth.

“I have bacon, Holmes”, Stamford said far too chirpily for this time of morning. 

“Ba-con!”

I thought wryly that if the way to a man's heart truly was through his stomach then Stamford had his room-mate figured out. Then I realized that a pair of ice-blue eyes were staring curiously at me, almost as if he could read my very thoughts. 

It was cold in the room, even for September. That was why I shivered. 

“And your ketchup”, Stamford said, passing him a small bowl. 

“Good man!” Holmes grunted, downing another coffee. 

“What happened to your eye?” I asked politely. My night attacker was definitely sporting a small shiner. 

“Lord Rushcliffe happened”, he said dryly. “He and his two cronies came off worse.”

Stamford whistled through his teeth.

“You don't want to be upsetting the Perseverance Club, Holmes”, he said warningly. 

“What is the Perseverance Club?” I asked wonderingly. 

“It is a club for those with more money than sense”, Holmes said crisply, “which in this city is a wide definition. I was investigating as to whether or not they were behind the recent outbreak of crime in the colleges and Lord Rushcliffe took exception to my questions.”

“He was hardly going to admit to it”, Stamford pointed out. “You are thinking that he was behind all three thefts?”

“Four”, Holmes corrected.

“Four?” Stamford asked surprised. Holmes looked at him grimly.

“The Gloria Scott”, he said meaningfully.

I knew not what he meant by those words but my friend looked as if he had been pole-axed.

“No!” he gasped.

I looked between the two of them, annoyed at being out of the loop.

“What is going on?” I asked. Holmes turned back to me.

“That”, he said crisply, “is precisely what I am endeavouring to find out. _In between being assaulted in the dark by visitors to the vicinity!”_

I blushed. Manfully, of course.

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“Bargate is one of the newest colleges”, Stamford explained to me some time later having steadied his nerves with a large brandy (I knew that whatever had happened had to have been bad; he hardly ever drank). “It was founded as a very small place fifty years ago and only reached its present size and status thanks to the generosity of one Mr. Solomon Beaumont-Carew who had made his fortune in shipping. He started out as a maritime pilot – the men who guide ships into and out of harbour – and still did the job occasionally even when he owned his own fleet of ships.”

“Mr. Beaumont-Carew had had one son, David, but he died before he could come of age. His three daughters all married gentlemen of whom their father disproved mightily and this, among other things, led to a breakdown in familial relations. He died some ten years ago and his will left everything he possessed to be divided between the college, which got two-thirds of the estate, and his three daughters who got one-ninth each. They would likely have contested that but a proviso in the will meant that anyone who challenged the will would have to lodge a sum that they would lose if unsuccessful, so they chose not to.”

“I see”, I said as Holmes wandered back into the room looking as careworn as earlier and sat down at the table. “So who is this Gloria Scott then? One of the daughters?

“No”, Stamford said. “One of the terms of the bequest was that he also left the college a scale model of the first ship he owned, a brigantine. He had it made especially with a small model of himself in the bridge; modesty was not one of his failings!”

He shot the quickest of looks at his room-mate, who growled in disapproval.

“The terms of the will were unusual”, Stamford continued, smiling slightly. “The college only got the interest from the capital sum for twelve years after which they got the remaining money as a lump sum. They also had to keep the model safe and display it in the Main Hall; if it was lost or stolen then all the moneys went to charity.”

I frowned.

“But then why would this Lord Rushcliffe wish to engineer a theft of the model?” I asked. “Surely he does not gain from it at all?”

“Some men will do things just so someone or some organization that they dislike doesn't benefit”, Stamford said. “Did you not tell me once that Lord Rushcliffe's brother Viscount Cropwell is married to the eldest daughter of the late Mr. Beaumont-Carew?”

“I _do_ read things other than the social pages”, I said not at all testily. “And I still do not see just why this theft happened.”

“Except that it has not happened.”

We both turned to look at Holmes who was sat there with a ridiculous curved pipe (unlit) in his mouth. He stared back at us. Yet again I had the impression that those impossible blue eyes could see right down to my very soul. He was an inch or two taller than me and had long, untidy hair that looked as if he had stopped combing it halfway through. I wondered why he cared so little for his appearance; he might almost have been presentable in society with just a little more effort.

“Parkinson, the watchman, nearly caught the thief crossing the quadrangle”, he explained, looking knowingly at me for some reason. “The villain dropped the model and fled. It has been damaged but it is repairable.”

“So the theft failed?” I asked.

“Possibly”, Holmes mused. “I am still investigating the case.”

“I suppose that they took the model to Wentworth?” Stamford said.

“Who is Wentworth?” I asked.

“The go-to chap for cleaning and repairing such stuff”, Stamford explained. “He did a great job putting that frightful Renaissance painting to rights even if it was dog-ugly to begin with. Four women all looking constipated; I would not have given the thing house-room!”

I smiled at that. Stamford had never had any appreciation of art.

“He has to put himself to rights first”, Holmes said. “Thomas Wentworth was struck down in the food poisoning incident at dinner the night before last, along with around twenty other people. I talked to his brother and he will not be able to work on the model for another few days at least.”

“Coincidence?” I ventured.

“Either way it has not helped the thieves”, Holmes said. “The college has had two security guards posted around the model until it can be taken away to be repaired. It is far less accessible than it was before.”

“A strange case all round”, I said.

“Indeed”, Holmes agreed. “I am sure that we have not heard the last of this matter.”

His words were to prove strangely prophetic.

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A week passed and I enjoyed touring the sights of Oxford. Stamford had a major essay to write so he jotted down some suggestions as to places I might wish to see and I enjoyed walking around the city of dreaming spires in the late summer sun. I saw little of Holmes but my friend assured me that he was 'on the case' whatever that meant. 

I was reading in one of the fireside chairs when Holmes returned from wherever he had been that day.

“Where is Stamford?” he asked, removing his jacket and tossing it into the disaster area that was his side of the room.

“He is seeing one of his professors”, I said. “I think it is about the essay that he is writing. 

Holmes nodded and to my surprise continued to disrobe until he was bare-chested. I had never considered the male form outside of my professional interests before but I had to admit that he was surprisingly muscular for someone of his stature. True, the room was warm but sitting there bare-chested with another gentleman in the room – it was just not done. I really had to say something.

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I was still choosing my words some half an hour later when Stamford returned. 

“They have struck again!” he said as soon as he was through the door. I looked up at him.

“The naval thief?” I asked.

“Yes!” he said. “But this time they hit the jackpot! Six gold bars recovered from a sunken Spanish galleon in Cornwall were on display at Exeter and they got the lot. Someone broke into the library in the small hours of the morning and while the watchman was chasing them off the real thieves struck at the Main Hall!”

 _“Five_ things now”, I mused looking across at his bare-chested room-mate. “I wonder if the great Mr. Holmes will be able to solve this case after all.”

“I already have.”

I stared at him in shock.

“How can you know who it was?” I demanded. 

“It is quite simple”, he said dryly. “Once one has eliminated the impossible then whatever remains, however improbable, _must_ be the solution.”

“Anyone could do that!” I snapped. 

He looked at me and I could see his disbelief.

“Really?” he said with a slight smile. “I wish to re-interview those parties involved tomorrow before presenting my findings to the College Board. You are welcome to accompany me, Mr. Watson, and to see if you can reach the same conclusions that I have.”

I glared at him.

“It's a date!” I said hotly, ignoring my friend's barely suppressed snigger. I knew what I meant. And he was still sat there half-naked!

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Our first interview the following day was with Mr. William Parkinson, the Bargate watchman. He was a grizzled old war veteran in his late fifties; I was surprised that he opened up to Holmes so quickly. He showed us where the thief had got in and answered all of my companion's questions quite readily. 

“You cannot possibly think that he was involved”, I said as we left. “The man has a medal for serving in the Crimea‡!”

“A medal does not pay the bills”, Holmes said sonorously. “You observed that he has a second job to help clear his debts?”

I stared at him in confusion.

“I do not remember him telling you that”, I said. “And what debts?”

“He works on the site where they are putting up the new building for Queens”, Holmes explained. “The building is being constructed of Chilmark stone, the dust from which is quite distinctive and was present on both his clothes and hands. Then there was a tally marker partly hidden under some papers on his desk which means that he must owe someone a considerable amount. Money or the lack thereof often provides an excellent motive for crime.”

I looked dubiously at him.

“Queens was where the first theft happened, was it not?” I asked.

Holmes nodded and smiled knowingly.

“Indeed!” he said. “Let us brave the insufferable Kenneth Lord Rushcliffe and see if we can lower your regard for the English nobility somewhat.”

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I had always looked up to the nobility but I found myself taking an immediate dislike to the Earl of Pengwern's second son. He was in his late thirties, blond and ruddy-faced, and made no secret of his displeasure at our visit. 

“Holmes again!” he sneered. “I see that you brought a nice new lap-dog!”

“I did have one more question for you”, Holmes said politely. “Of course if you would rather that I go straight to the College Board....”

He stopped, clearly allowing the threat to hang in the air. The nobleman paled.

“What is it?” he snapped.

“The runner, or the cook?”

I stared at Holmes in confusion, although I did not miss how the nobleman went even paler at his question.

“The runner”, he muttered.

“Thank you”, Holmes smiled with an impressive amount of insincerity. “That was all I wished to know.”

“Rot in hell!”

Holmes made a slight bow and led the way out. I scuttled after him.

“What was all that about?” I asked bewilderedly.

“The food poisoning of an entire table is apposite to the case”, he said striding quickly along. Then he stopped, so suddenly that I nearly ran into him. “Any deductions so far _Constable_ Watson?”

I frowned at the appellation.

“I wonder why an earl's son, and for that matter someone of his age, should be at college in the first place”, I said. “He does not strike me as the studious type.”

He smiled at me.

“A good observation and pertinent to the case”, he said. “Follow that thought and see where it leads. Come. We have two more calls to make.”

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I felt completely out of place in the lawyer's office, a feeling not helped by the fact that Holmes once more seemed to fit in perfectly. I guessed that his name had opened up this particular door to him although I could not help marvel again at how the man could turn on the charm. Mr. Mark Baden was sat opposite us leafing through a number of legal papers.

“You are aware”, he said, pompously for someone only in his late thirties”, that I am unable to divulge the precise details of the late Mr. Solomon Beaumont-Carew's estate? Even if some parts of the will are now common knowledge.”

Holmes nodded his assent.

“That is not the reason for my call”, he said. “I know that you were the person who drew up the last will and testament of Mr. Solomon Beaumont-Carew. What I wished to ascertain was knowledge of a certain financial aspect appertaining to it.”

He handed over a piece of paper to the lawyer who unfolded it and read it. The fellow almost jumped out of his comfortable chair.

“How did you know?” he demanded staring at Holmes as if the fellow were some kind of wizard. The man smiled.

“I did not”, he said. “I deduced. From your reaction it appears that I deduced quite correctly. Thank you for agreeing to see us, sir. We will take up no more of your valuable time.”

He ushered me out. Once outside I turned to glare at him.

“So the theft was to deprive the college of the bequest after all?” I asked.

“The _attempted_ theft was aimed at achieving but one thing and it succeeded in that aim”, Holmes said. He looked at his watch. “We must hurry. Our last call goes to dinner in thirty-five minutes.”

I did not bother to ask him how he knew that.

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The offices of Mr. Thomas Wentworth. A short dark-haired man in his forties bade us enter and introduced himself as Mr. Joseph Wentworth, brother to the invalid.

“Do you have any more questions for me, Mr. Holmes?” he asked politely.

“Just the one, thank you”, Holmes said. “Did they bring the model over earlier this evening?”

“Yes, sir”, the man said. “Joseph thinks that he will be well enough to start work on it the day after tomorrow. We have locked it away in our most secure cupboard.”

“Good”, Holmes said. “Tonight I want you to leave it in plain sight in the main room.”

Mr. Wentworth turned deathly pale.

“Surely you do not think....”

“I do not _think_ sir”, Holmes said firmly. “I prefer to _know_. I appreciate that your brother is not fully recovered but it is imperative that the two of you spend the night elsewhere. I believe you have a third brother Walter, who lives in the city. You must stay with him and not return until after sun-up tomorrow.”

“Very good, sir.”

“I shall see you at four o' clock tomorrow afternoon”, Holmes said firmly. “Be sure that you are ready.”

“I will, sir.”

Holmes hustled me out of the room before I could say anything.

“What on earth is going on?” I asked.

“There is going to be a lot of fuss tomorrow”, he said brusquely, and I thought he looked almost sad for some reason. “I shall speak with the College Board at around three o' clock. I would like to talk to you about the case afterwards, say around five o' clock in our room. Would that be acceptable?”

“Oh”, I said. “Yes. Acceptable. Yes.”

“Good”, he smiled.

“You know who did it?” I asked.

“Of course”, he said. “That is the easy part. Ensuring justice for those involved however..... I fear that that may prove somewhat more difficult.”

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Stamford took me around the Oxford shops the following day and as he had an appointment in town that same evening I returned to the college alone, arriving at about a quarter to five. Opening the door I was shocked to see two packed cases there. For a moment I thought that this might be an unsubtle way of my being asked to leave before realizing that the cases were not mine. As I stared Holmes came through from his room heaving a third case.

“You are leaving?” I gasped.

“I must”, he said his face dark. “The Board has left me with no option.”

“But why?” I asked, shocked. “You are halfway through your degree. You cannot give up now!”

“I have no choice”, he said acidly. “This morning the missing naval items were all found in Mr. Thomas Wentworth's quarters. He and his brother have been instructed to leave the college by nightfall or face prosecution for theft.”

“Then they _were_ guilty!” I exclaimed. 

Holmes looked at me almost pityingly and shook his head before checking his pocket-watch. 

“I have about ten minutes before my cab is due”, he said resignedly. “I suppose that I can use that to explain the case to you.”

I sat down eagerly.

“I am all ears!” I said. He looked confused at the expression but took a seat opposite me.

“The whole case revolves around the will of the late Mr. Solomon Beaumont-Carew”, he began. “Once I knew that Lord Rushcliffe's brother was married to his eldest daughter, I suspected his involvement in this ramp.”

“But how?” I asked.

“Mr. Baden confirmed my suspicion that upon disposal, the estate of the late Mr. Beaumont-Carew was considerably smaller than had been anticipated by his heirs”, he explained. “At the time this was considered due to what I now believe to be a false paper trail of supposedly poor investments. It is my belief that the man disliked his family sufficiently to convert the better part of his estate into a form which could elude their grasp. Mr. Baden confirmed for me that over the months before his death his client had made several trips to London. It is my belief that he used those trips to buy diamonds.”

“Why diamonds?” I asked, puzzled.

“He wished to remove a lot of money out of the house in a small space”, Holmes said. “A small space as in part of a model of an old sailing ship....”

“The Gloria Scott!” I exclaimed. He smiled at my enthusiasm. 

“Indeed”, he said. “I believe that he must have sent a communication to the dean of the college alerting him to the true value of his strange bequest. I think that because it chanced that the dean was taken ill on the very same day that Mr. Beaumont-Carew died, and himself passed on three days later. Hence the 'gift' went undetected.”

“And all that time the diamonds were virtually on open display!” I exclaimed. “Anyone could have taken them!”

He nodded.

“Eventually Mr. Beaumont-Carew's daughters must have become aware of the subterfuge”, he went on. “Most probably a servant talked, or offered to talk for money. Lord Rushcliffe therefore applied here – hardly a first choice for such a noble family let alone someone so clearly unsuitable to college life, as you said – planning to stay for as long as it would take to retrieve the diamonds. It was he who engineered the spate of thefts of which the model was just one.”

“Where would one hide a leaf but in a forest”, I muttered.

“Exactly.”

“But how did you know all this?” I demanded.

“Deduction mostly”, he said. “After all there were several clues.”

“Such as?” I asked.

“For one the fact that an agile young thief whom you may remember we had been told could vault an eight-foot wall, dropped the model and fled when confronted by an aged and unarmed watchman”, he said. “Lord Rushcliffe had thought that the diamonds had to have been hidden _inside_ the model, and indeed removing the roof of the ship's bridge allows one to access the figure of the pilot, the late Mr. Beaumont-Carew, which when pressed back releases a secret compartment lock. Lord Rushcliffe planned to remove the diamonds, allow the empty model to be sent to the Wentworths for repair, carry out a fifth robbery and then plant the other stolen items on the brothers for the authorities to 'find'. That was why I made sure that the Wentworths were elsewhere when the 'set-up' occurred; I did not want to risk them getting hurt as may have been likely given the sort of people that I was dealing with here.”

“Evil!” I shuddered. “And that bastard has got away with it.”

To my surprise Holmes shook his head.

“Not at all”, he smiled dourly. “Lord Rushcliffe is doubtless feeling very pleased with himself just now, but he has severely underestimated his brother's father-in-law. As he will realize when he tries to sell them, the diamonds in the ship's hold are all imitation ones.”

I stared.

“But how could you know that?” I asked.

“Because unlike that prancing peer I assumed a much greater degree of intelligence from his foe”, he said. “Mr. Beaumont-Carew foresaw what you yourself said might happen, that someone might find the jewels by sheer chance, so he placed some excellent imitations in the obvious place. Very good quality ones; I had to test them before even I was sure. Once the fake gems are removed however one can access two small panels inside which conceal two switches. Pressing them both at the same time opens a compartment in the base in which the real diamonds were hidden.”

“So _you_ have the real gems?” I asked. To my surprise he shook his head. 

“I was going to restore them to the college to whom they were originally intended”, he said, “but after the shameful way in which the college chose to treat the Wentworths, I had a change of heart. I came here from their rooms where I gave them a small souvenir of the place that has treated them so appallingly. Their new lives in the United States will be that much more comfortable now.”

“But why did the Board not expel Lord Rushcliffe?” I asked, confused.

“They know that he is guilty, but he is the son of a leading member of the House of Lords”, he said. “The Wentworths on the other hand are deemed 'expendable'.”

I shuddered at that word.

“It is all about justice”, he said softly. “I do try to follow the law but first I follow what is _right_.” His head titled to one side and nodded. “That is my cab. I do hope that we shall meet again some day.”

I recovered enough to mutter a 'Godspeed' promising also to inform Stamford of the reasons for his departure. He looked at me for a moment as he stood on the doorway then formally shook my hand before heading out to his cab. He was gone and I wondered if we would ever meet again.

For some reason I felt oddly alone.

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Postscriptum: Joseph and Thomas Wentworth did indeed emigrate to the New World, America first before moving on to Canada. They were later joined by their brother Walter and his family, and established an honoured name as philanthropists over there. I have no evidence to support this but I believe that Sir Edward Holmes may have been instrumental in the financial troubles that subsequently befell Bargate which achieved a dubious distinction when it was first stripped of its university status and then finally forced to close less than a decade after the events herein described.

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_Notes:_   
_† In the nineteenth century this referred to the often decorated stick used for show and also for hill-walking, not as today a heavier stick with a curved end that is used by older people._   
_‡ The Crimean War (1853-1856 so less than two decades in the past). Great Britain and France combined to prevent Russia from securing the Crimea Peninsula in what was arguably the first 'modern' war with all the horrors that entailed. The effort was successful but led to both the resurgence of France (which alarmed Germany and led to the Franco-Prussian War) and to the decline of Russia (which ended in the Bolshevik Revolution)._

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	4. Interlude: Changes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1874-1875. Ch... ch... ch... ch... ch.... changes.

_[Narration by Mr. John Watson, Esquire]_

I only had a short time left in the city of dreaming spires, yet without the presence of my new if brief acquaintance it seemed so much longer. Stamford, who although almost as emotionally incontinent as I am seemed to sense that something was amiss, very generously put himself out to distract me and we parted with our friendship strengthened, he to continue his studies at that shameless college and I to my studies at St. Bart's.

I was perhaps more fortunate that my newest acquaintance, for he had to spend some time in his family home with his quite unique mother (I just _know_ that he is rolling his eyes at that appellation, the bastard!). He mentioned in his first letter that when he had told her about his meeting me, she had given him the sort of look that had suggested she was indeed planning a wedding, although he had no idea who his intended bride was (he did not sound the least but surprised at that, I noted). He also said that, quite bizarrely, the frequent hints that his mother had been dropping as to his possible marriage – 'hints' as in having a wedding Order of Service printed including his name and a dotted line where the bride's name should have been, then framed and presented to him! - had suddenly ceased. How odd.

I felt my regard for my new friend increase further when he told me that he had asked his father to keep an eye on Bargate and ensure that they did not further disgrace themselves by taking any action against Stamford (fortunately for them, they did not). Holmes also informed me that his father had wholeheartedly backed his son's decision to quit the place, so all he had to suffer was some time at home during which his mother tried to make him feel better by reading him some of her stories. He said that, not coincidentally, this was one of those rare times in his life when he drank copiously!

I, supposedly skilled at diagnosing people, was rather slower off the mark to realize that something had changed in my own life. In the normal run of events a doctor is supposed to deduce what is wrong with a patient from the sometimes inadequate and often downright misleading information provided, and then recommend a suitable course of treatment. Looking back there were several signs that something had changed, yet whether consciously or no I ignored them and continued with my life as before. I suppose that they are right when they say that doctors make the worst patients, although Stevie's remark that I was so far up a certain river in north-east Africa as to be in Ethiopia was pushing it.

Yes it _was!_

One particular incident in my life stood out, arising from one of the minor historical events of that year. This was the establishment of the London School of Medicine for Women, several of whose students undertook part of their course at St. Bartholomew's. One of them was an attractive young lady called Miss Alicia Robinson and several of my fellow students had attempted to win her favours, all to no avail. It came as something of a surprise when she approached me and suggested that we meet over a cup of tea. She was both charming and beautiful, yet throughout our meeting I felt absolutely nothing for her. Evidently she got the message and our encounter was not repeated, to the surprise of my fellow students.

A few weeks after my arrival back in London I received a letter from Holmes informing me that with the help of his father he had obtained a place on a similar course to the one he had been on up at Tarleton College in Cambridge (the cynic in me wondered just how generous the baronet had had to have been to have swung that). I had never heard of that particular establishment assuming, correctly as it turned out, that it was one of the newer ones. I had no idea how that name along with the blue-eyed scruffy little genius would come barrelling back into my life the following year, and in what tragic circumstances.

What did surprise me at that time was that Holmes himself continued writing to me. I had not thought that our brief encounter had merited such favouritism but I was more than happy to be proven wrong. He seemed to be settling in well to his new establishment and I only wished that it had been closer to London so that I might have contrived to visit him. His quirky mannerisms were in retrospect rather endearing (apart from the one that involved throwing visitors to the floor in the middle of the night!) and I wondered if I might suggest meeting up in London when he came to visit his parents one time.

As it happened I did not need to. We were fated to meet in Cambridge – _over two dead bodies!_

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	5. Case 2: The Tarleton Tragedy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1875\. Holmes meets Watson again, this time at the fenland university city where the future consulting detective proves that what looks like murder-suicide is in fact a diabolical double murder, in which witnesses have lied without even knowing it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mention of suicide.

_[Narration by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire]_

Foreword: This case involves an element of suicide. It may seem strange to readers of a later generation but in the 1870s suicide was seen as both a crime and a matter for social disapproval or even disgrace. One does not have to approve of such views from recent history any more than one has to approve of many of the foul practices from ancient times, but an understanding is necessary to comprehend people's reactions to such an event.

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I suppose that it might feasibly be possible to have a conversation with my mother that does not leave me traumatized. Just like it might be possible to swim the wide Atlantic Ocean. But this most recent one had gone from terrifying to even more terrifying in an instant.

Mother was understandably Livid (what my sister Anna called a Level Seven) over what had happened at Bargate, and had demanded that Father take instant action or she would go there herself. Much as I did not like Oxford for the way some people there had treated me, no place deserved that and Stamford was still there, but fortunately Father was able to both set about making the college authorities pay and (more importantly from my own point of view) to obtain a place for me on virtually the same course that I had been on but at Tarleton, one of the newer Cambridge colleges.

No, what left me more worried that I had ever been in my short life was when Mother insisted that I would feel better if she read me some of her dreadful stories, but just as she was getting into one about the hockey team caught in a demonic whirlwind ('Supernatural'), I managed to distract her by telling her about meeting Watson at Bargate. For one horrible moment I was sure that I had made the biggest mistake of my life; she came over with that glazed expression as if she had just seen a field of gambolling lambs. Then she patted the top of my head and smiled in a way that terrified me. 

And then she left me! 

_What the blazes had just happened?_

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The last year of my life had been turbulent enough, what with my first love, my first.... that, and then the same girl who I had thought might well one day be Mrs. Sherlock Holmes dumping me because she had something better and her father disapproved of me anyway. That had all been in the tumultuous summer between my second and third year at Bargate (technically my third and fourth as I was a year ahead of schedule, which had pleased my parents). Although with a family like mine I had been pleased to get away from London; Anna was away at school and only my cousin Luke was in and out occasionally; always (I noted) when Mother was not there, the coward! That left Torver, Randall and Guilford, all of whom I would willingly have pushed under a horse and cart!

_(If I were as organized as Watson I would introduce all my various family members in more detail at this point, but some of them are so horrible that I frankly cannot face it. Plus I am still getting over Mother giving me that terrible look as if she is planning my wedding, although who to I have not the slightest idea. I shall introduce my 'mixed' family as and when the need arises, or better, wait for Watson – who can be wonderfully catty when the need arises – to do it for me)._

I finally made my escape from home and settled in to Tarleton well enough, soon getting back into my stride and making good progress on my course. I devoted myself to my studies and my one luxury was my letters to Watson, whose natural diffidence I found refreshing after the stifling atmosphere of home. He was too good and true to play up to my vanity as some tried to do both there and in Cambridge, and I hoped to arrange to meet with him some time this coming summer. I could not believe my luck when in March he wrote to me that he had secured a place doing three weeks' experience at the University Medical Centre come summer, servicing Tarleton and all the other colleges. The Gods were surely on my side for once!

They were, but.....

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The only downside of Watson's visit was that it would overlap the latter part of my end of year examinations, but I was confident that I had those covered and determined to make the most of his time here. I felt for him when shortly after the news of his advent he wrote of his sadness when he and several other students had volunteered to go down to Cornwall to assist with the aftermath of the sinking of the German liner 'Schiller'. It had foundered on the rocks of the Scilly Islands and only thirty-seven of over 370 people on board had been rescued, the medical services of our south-westernmost county being severely overstretched by having to deal with so many bodies at once. One day not far into the future Watson and I would visit those distant islands together, and in some of the darkest of circumstances for me personally.

Summer seemed to take ages to arrive that year but eventually Watson made it up here and we arranged to meet one Saturday. Unfortunately he then had to cancel our meeting as he had volunteered to stay on duty as one of the Centre's doctors was getting married shortly and he and his friends wanted to travel down to London for the wedding preparations. He was so good to do something like that especially for people he barely knew, and it frustrated me even more than we could not meet on the Sunday as my parents were coming up and I liked him enough not to risk subjecting him to another of Mother's stories. I had sent him 'Tree's Company', the short one on the satyr who fell in love with all the trees in a forest becoming convinced that he could 'make more satyrs out of them', and his writing when he did reply had been noticeably shaky!

Since I could not have my friend I offered to help out again at the local police-station again. Sergeant James Huntington was despite his young age (he was only a few years older than me) a cut above the average policeman and he appreciated another pair of hands. It was while I was with him that we had a call to go out to Tarleton Hall itself, where there had been a shooting. I worried about that as the more logical way to describe a crime would be as what it was rather than such a general term, and when we arrived I found that I had been all too right. It was potentially one of the trickiest crimes for any policeman to investigate – a possible suicide..

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The Tarleton family had once owned much of the land around this quarter of the fenland city, but now they held just the hall and its immediate estate, my college having been founded some years back when a particularly large area of land had been sold off to the original institution which wished to expand. We were was greeted by the butler who hustled us upstairs with more speed than decorum. At the end of the corridor a heavy oaken door hung on a single hinge clearly having been broken down, and it creaked ominously as I entered the room behind it.

I found myself in what was clearly a gentleman's lounge of some sort. There was a small one-legged table on its side behind the door, presumably having been knocked over when the room had been broken in to. More importantly, there were two dead people. The gentleman had been about thirty years of age, sallow-skinned with light fair hair and a long nose. He was wearing a dressing-gown over pyjamas, both of high quality. The lady had been younger, probably in her early twenties. She had light brown hair that flowed over her shoulders and was wearing a powder-blue dress, again of high quality. The most surprising thing about her was the look of sheer hatred that had disfigured her face in death. 

There were two other doors in the room, French ones leading out presumably onto a balcony and a small side-door which, I supposed, led into the bedroom of the male victim assuming that this room was his. Both doors were shut. The other strange thing about the room was the smell; I had noted the purple candle lying on the floor by the table which may have accounted for it, but the room positively _reeked_ of lavender.

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The sergeant took preliminary statements from the gentlemen who had heard the shooting as well as from the maid who had been serving them when the gunshots had rung out, while I arranged for one of the spare rooms to be set up for the main interviews. I also took a lamp and checked outside the scene of the crime, but although there was a balcony it had seemingly not been used to access the room, and the soft ground beneath it would surely have shown any recent footprints. Nor was it near any other balcony. I sighed unhappily; this looked very bad.

On a whim I wandered around the corner of the building to look at the situation there. This was more hopeful; there were still no footprints in the soft grass but four of the five windows had small balconies that were fairly close together, including the room next to the scene of the crime. I thought for a moment then went back to the sergeant who had clearly reached the obvious conclusion that most people would have done.

“I am very much afraid that it looks like a murder-suicide, sir”, he said dolefully as we stood again in the lounge. “No-one was seen entering or leaving the scene of the crime except the victims; they all agreed on that.

“Perhaps not”, I said. “One must remember that we could encounter two types of lies here, sergeant; what a real killer might say to cover up their crime, and what people may say when they lie without meaning to.”

He looked at me in confusion but his musings were interrupted by the sound of someone hurrying down the corridor towards us. I looked at the sergeant.

“They sent for a doctor as well”, he explained.

I did not even have time to wonder. Watson came through the door and looked at me in astonishment.

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My.... acquaintance was much as I remembered him, if a little dishevelled in his haste to get here. He looked at me for some time then managed something approaching a smile. 

_Their eyes met across a pair of dead bodies_. My mother must _never_ get to hear of this or she would try to write a story about it. Worse, I would be expected to read it!

“Mr. Holmes is a student who has been helping us at the station”, Sergeant Huntington explained to Watson as he examined both the victims. “He has an interest in crime so I thought that his presence might be valuable.”

Watson nodded and glanced at the clock on the table. It was almost ten o' clock. 

“They have both been dead for not less than an hour and not more than two”, he said confidently. “Unfortunately the presence of the fire makes it harder to give a narrower estimation as it has helped slow the natural cooling process. I would say an hour and a quarter is most likely but I cannot be more exact.”

The sergeant looked relieved.

“That fits very well sir”, he said looking down at his notepad. “The gentlemen downstairs heard the shots just after the clock chimed a quarter to nine.”

“The cause of death is painfully obvious”, Watson said. “Both were shot in the head and they must both have died almost immediately. However the gentleman was shot at some distance and somewhat from the side, while the lady was shot at close range and head-on. From the position of her body it seems that she may have risen from her chair and then fallen back into it.”

The sergeant looked away for some reason. I winced; sooner rather than later my medical acquaintance was going to put two and two together.

“The gentlemen downstairs all agreed that the room was not entered before the shots except by the two people here, sir”, the sergeant said slowly. “The gentlemen rushed up when they heard them and there is no other exit from the room.”

Watson gestured towards the side-door behind the lady's corpse.

“What about that?” he asked.

“It only leads to the connecting bedroom, sir”, the sergeant said. “There is no way out from that except out onto a balcony or back into the outside corridor.”

“But this room has a balcony too”, Watson objected. “Could not the murderer have escaped that way?”

“The door was locked and there was no sign of forced entry”, I said, clearly. “Besides it has been raining for the past two hours yet there are no footprints in the soft ground, nor is the balcony near any others. I checked.”

By his crestfallen expression I knew that he had got there. Almost the worst possible outcome.

“We are just about to take full witness statements from the gentlemen who were here at the time”, the sergeant frowned. “This is very bad. Miss Bessborough was a lovely lady. I do not know what could have possessed her to do such a thing.”

“Are you sure that she did, sergeant?” I asked. 

He looked at me, puzzled.

“The facts do seem to point that way, sir”, he said.

“Doctor Watson and I know each other from a prior meeting at Oxford”, I said. “If you would not mind sergeant, the two of us would like to sit in on your interviews. I think that we should definitely start with Doctor Arrowsmith.”

“Why him?” the sergeant asked curiously.

“Because the badge he wears on his lapel indicates he is of the temperance movement”, I explained, “and therefore his recollection of events is likely to the the clearest of the four.”

“Oh”, the sergeant said. “Yes sir. As you wish.”

He led the way out of the room and Watson was about to follow when I caught at his sleeve. 

“I am glad that it was you who came”, I said quietly. 

He blushed fiercely for some reason.

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I could not help notice as we waited for the servant to bring Doctor Arrowsmith just how nervous the sergeant looked. 

“It seems”, he said, “that Miss Bessborough shot Mr. Holder then turned the gun on herself. When I briefly questioned the gentlemen downstairs they all agreed that there were only two shots.”

“The shot that killed Miss Bessborough does not strike you as at all odd?” I asked. The sergeant looked puzzled.

“Odd in what way sir?” he asked.

“Sergeant”, I said, “the bullet was almost perfectly front and centre to the lady's forehead. Surely someone committing suicide would point the gun to the _side_ of their head? Staring down the barrel of a gun seems an unnecessary strain.”

I could see from the sergeant's expression that he had not thought of that but further discussion was curtailed by the arrival of our first witness. Doctor Robert Arrowsmith was about fifty years of age, grey-haired and as I had surmised his recollection of the events of the tragic evening was indeed precise.

“The four of us sat down to dinner at six”, he recalled, “and it lasted for just over an hour. “We finished about five minutes after seven; I remember dessert being cleared away just as the dining-room clock struck the hour. We all adjourned to the main room downstairs except for Philip, Mary's brother. He was ill and went to his room for a lie-down, and was there the whole evening. Poor fellow, he must be devastated.”

“Where is his room, sir?” the sergeant asked. 

“Four doors along from Ebenezer's – Mr. Holder's - but the corridor between is open on one sides and clearly visible from the main room downstairs”, the doctor said looking hard at the sergeant. “If he had gone to the room he would have been seen by at least one of us.”

“Not if you were distracted”, I challenged. He looked offended at such a suggestion.

“I was sat facing the opposite way”, he said, “but James and Geoffrey were both looking straight across the corridor. If Philip had come out of his room, they would definitely have seen him!”

He was clearly not to be moved on that point. The sergeant changed tack.

“Did you see anyone go into the room between seven and nine?” he pressed. The doctor thought for a moment.

“I went up almost immediately – it must have been about ten past seven – to take Ebenezer some pills”, Doctor Arrowsmith recalled. “Do not look like that sergeant; it was for a mild nervous complaint, nothing that would have any bearing on the case. I dare say that they are still in the room somewhere. You are perfectly at liberty to have them tested if you so wish.”

“Is that why he had the candle?” Watson asked. 

“No, I believe that that was a present from Miss Bessborough”, the doctor said. “They were all but engaged to be married, you know.”

Clearly the sergeant had not known that. The furrow on his brow deepened.

“James – Mr. Tarleton who owns this house – went up to take him a drink at shortly after half past seven”, Doctor Arrowsmith recalled. “Ebenezer had a fancy for strange cocktail mixes and he was skilled at getting them just right. When he came down he told us that Ebenezer had asked that Geoffrey – March, the family lawyer – go up after eight to discuss a legal matter with him. He went up just after the main clock stopped chiming the hour and was there for about twenty minutes, maybe a little longer. He was back down before the half-hour, I am sure about that. Mary arrived home at exactly twenty minutes to nine – I looked at the clock as she came in - and she went straight up to the room after bidding us good evening. I was clearing the table as we had just sent for more drinks so I was facing that way at the time and saw her reach the door and enter. It must have been only seconds after she entered that I heard her cry out and there were two gunshots. We made it there as quickly as we could but we were too late.”

“How long do you think it took you to reach the scene of the crime?” the sergeant asked. 

Doctor Arrowsmith thought for a moment.

“We were some distance from the staircase”, he said. “And then we found the door locked so had to break it down. James and I went back to the alcove by the top of the stairs and found the old wooden bench there so we used that. I would say that it took us not much more than a minute and a half to break through, two at the most. Geoffrey tried the door to the next room but it was locked; that was Ebenezer's bedroom and he always valued his privacy.”

My policeman friend had remarked to me on that, which was another reason that I thought he would go far in the police service (he later did). It was illogical for a lady who was supposedly set on committing murder and suicide to lock a door that would serve no real purpose. The sergeant caught up with his notes before asking another question.

“You said that Mr. Philip Bessborough was in his room at the time”, he said. “Why did he not reach the door first?”

“I believe he was in the water closet adjoining his room, sir. It is what the French call an _en suite.”_

“May I ask a question?” I ventured.

“Of course”, the sergeant said.

“When you yourself entered the room, did you notice any particular smell?”

The doctor frowned.

“Only that damn candle that reeks the place out!” he snorted. 

“It was not lit?” I asked.

“It lay on the floor just behind the door”, Doctor Arrowsmith said. “We entered the room somewhat precipitously you understand, and the table it was presumably on was knocked over in the confusion. It must have been alight when we entered – the stench alone told me that! - but our minds were on rather more important matters at the time as you can imagine.”

“And you are sure that no-one entered the room apart from the people you stated?” the sergeant pressed.

“You must ask James and Geoffrey if they saw anything”, the doctor said. “I was mostly facing away as I told you. May I be excused?”

“We would only ask that you wait until everyone involved with the case has been interviewed”, I said with a smile. “Matters may arise from the recollections of other people and I am sure that you would not want a policeman calling at your surgery when you are receiving patients. Particularly as this story will be all over the town by tomorrow.”

He scowled at me, but nodded and left.

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Our next visitor was Mr. Philip Bessborough, brother to the female victim. He was in his mid-twenties, a small man with a puzzled frown on his face as if he could not quite believe the night's events. Watson was clearly surprised when I whispered something to the sergeant then left before the witness had sat down. I had a sneaking suspicion what he would say anyway, and needed to ask Doctor Arrowsmith a further question as well as making one or two other arrangements.

The doctor was not pleased when I ran him down in the library, presumably thinking that as the sergeant was not there he did not need to bother with the likes of me.

“I would point out, sir”, I said, “that the courts take a dim view of perjury these days. Even when it is done unwittingly.”

“Everything that I told you and your friend was correct, sir”, he said frostily. “Excuse me.”

“What about the maid?” I demanded.

He looked at me as if I were quite mad.

“Yes, a maid came out of one of the rooms and went into another”, he said. “I think that she came out of the study next to Philip's room and went into the spare bedroom next door, two doors down from the scene of the crime. But there is no access to the rooms either side from there.”

I smiled to myself. I could now see _how_ this evil act had been done, and if the family lawyer could answer my question for him the way in which I expected, I would also know _why._ Then I had to secure the proof which, I hoped, had not yet been disposed of.

I thanked the doctor and found Mr. March easily enough. He looked at me suspiciously but confirmed what I had said, although he reasserted that Mr. Bessborough could not possibly have committed the crime. I then went to the latter's room. What I had hoped to find was not there, but after the study also yielded nothing I found what I wanted in a chest in the spare bedroom, two doors away from the scene of the crime. Using a spare sheet I took it and moved it under the bed, shaking my head at the evil that Mankind was capable of when it came to money.

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After one more task I returned to join Watson and the sergeant, passing Mr. Bessborough as he left the interview room. I was not surprised to learn that he admitted under duress that the late Mr. Holder had had an affair with a 'lady of negotiable affection' down in London some time back and a child had resulted, nor that Mr. Bessborough having learned of this had pressured Mr. Holder to 'come clean' with Miss Bessborough. 

“She was so disgusted that she shot him, I suppose”, the sergeant sighed. “Motive, means – she always carried a pistol with her – and opportunity.”

I did not have time to tell them of my findings immediately as Mr. Geoffrey March arrived to the room. He was very much the typical lawyer; elderly, confident and on his guard. I was not at all surprised when he invoked client confidentiality in refusing to discuss his conversation with the late Mr. Holder. He thought that he had stayed with the man for closer on half an hour rather than twenty minutes although he confirmed that he had descended before the clock struck the half-hour, leaving a clear fifteen minutes before Miss Bessborough's entering the room, but otherwise his recollections of the evening tallied perfectly with everyone else's. He stated categorically that no-one apart from the three of them had entered the murdered man's room. 

“He was the last one to see Mr. Holder alive”, the sergeant noted once he had left. “It really does look as if Miss Bessborough shot Mr. Holder, loath though I am to think such a thing in this day and age.”

“It may be worth investigating to see if he has been stealing money from the estate”, Watson mused. “Though how he could have committed the crime given what we know I simply cannot see.”

I remained silent for now, to see what our final witness might have to say for himself. Mr. James Tarleton was a handsome dark-haired fellow in his early thirties and looked every inch the nobleman. His account matched up perfectly with those of the other witnesses, and I could see that the sergeant was thinking maybe a shade too perfectly.

“I would like to ask one question if I may”, I said politely, looking at the sergeant who nodded his permission. “You did not entertain any feelings for the lady yourself?” 

The nobleman blushed fiercely. Watson looked at me in astonishment, clearly wondering how I had known to ask that.

“I am a gentleman, Mr. Holmes”, Mr. Tarleton said acidly. “Whatever their own feelings, gentlemen do _not_ poach the fiancées of other gentlemen even if an engagement has not yet been formalized. Such a thing would be insupportable!”

I smiled inwardly at his forthrightness as the sergeant indicated that he could leave. 

“This is bad”, he said heavily. “A murder _and_ a suicide.”

“Not quite“, I said. “A double murder made to look like a murder and a suicide. More importantly, one that can be proven as such.”

The sergeant stared at me incredulously.

“How can you know that?” he demanded.

I looked at him thoughtfully. The law was all very well in its way, but sometimes one had to achieve justice by other methods.

“You are a decent man, sergeant”, he said slowly. “What Doctor Watson and I are about to do is arguably unethical but will, if what I believe to be the truth is indeed what happened, enable you to prove that Miss Bessborough did not murder Mr. Holder and that she did not subsequently take her own life.”

“And you think....”

“It might be better if the representative of the law was otherwise engaged for the next half-hour or so”, I said gently. “I know that you have men posted outside the house; you might put them on alert just in case. Then the housekeeper is waiting for you downstairs and it would only be natural for you to spend time interviewing the staff.” I smiled knowingly. “Plus her coffee-cake is quite delicious!”

The sergeant nodded silently and left the room without a word. I went to the door and summoned the butler, then returned to the centre of the room and extracted three things from my pocket. One was the scented candle from the murder room, the second was a plain white envelope and the third a folded piece of paper.

“I do not see how anyone other than Miss Bessborough _could_ have killed Mr. Holder”, Watson said plaintively. “And all the witnesses assured us that no-one else entered the room.”

“They lied about that”, I said dismissively. “Although to be fair, they did not know that they lied.”

He was clearly about to ask him how I could possibly know that for a fact when there was a knock at the door. I looked at him and mouthed the word 'murderer'. 

“Enter!” I called out.

The door opened and Watson very clearly had to fight hard to suppress a gasp at the gentleman who came through it. It was Mr. Philip Bessborough.

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I took a pen out of my pocket and laid it on the folded paper before turning to our visitor.

“Mr. Bessborough”, I said sharply, “time is short. I have informed Sergeant Huntington that he will know the identity of the murderer of your sister and her almost-fiancé before the evening is out.”

The fellow looked puzzled.

“But I thought....” 

“You will therefore do me the courtesy of signing this confession”, I interrupted, gesturing to the table. “Ten minutes after you so do it will be placed in the sergeant's hands. What you choose to do in that time is your own business but as I am sure you are aware the sergeant has men posted around the grounds, and they have been alerted to prevent anyone leaving. There are two ways out for you, sir; if you are a gentleman you will choose the only honourable one.”

“Sir, I must protest!”

I sighed. Watson was looking at me in amazement.

“Very well”, I said heavily. “I will tell you _how_ you did it, then I will say _why_ you did it. Firstly, you lied over Mr. Holder having fathered an illegitimate child in London. Documents I found when I searched the house show that _you_ were the one who did that, and that they were in Mr. Holder's study showed that he was aware of that fact. He used that knowledge as leverage to force you to accept his suit for your sister, despite the fact that you would much have preferred her to make a more prestigious match with Mr. Tarleton.”

“Sir!”

“You planned it well. You knew that your sister always arrived back at the same time every Saturday from her meeting, so a few moments before she was due you left your room and walked up the corridor, entering not Mr. Holder's room but the spare bedroom two doors down.”

“But that is impossible!” Watson objected. “No-one was seen to go along that corridor between Mr. March's descent and Miss Bessborough's return.”

I turned to look at him. I knew from certain unsubtle family members that I sometimes got a little passionate about certain things, and there must have been a look about me that caused him to edge backwards slightly.

“When the gentlemen downstairs all stated that no-one used that corridor between Mr. March's descent and Miss Bessborough's arrival”, I said, “they was not being strictly truthful. What they meant was no-one _important_ used it. When during that time a maidservant came out of one of the rooms and entered another, it barely registered with the gentlemen downstairs. Not even that the maid was carrying a set of clothes - _because that maid was you!_

Mr. Bessborough had gone a deathly shade of white. I turned back to him.

“I have retrieved the maid's uniform which you appropriated”, I said crisply. “So what next? The spare bedroom is one of a set of rooms each of which has a small balcony, and it was easy for you to go out and cross to the balcony of Mr. Holder's bedroom. Once your sister was with Mr. Holder you burst in through the connecting door and shot him. Your sister screamed, but you knew because of the layout of the house that it would take the gentlemen downstairs a clear minute to reach the door and rather longer to break though it as you were about to lock it. You then killed your own flesh and blood, hence your sister's dying look of hatred.”

The man was shaking now. I ploughed on.

“You then locked the door”, I said. “This in itself was another point against your sister's guilt; why would she lock herself in when it would only delay the inevitable discovery of 'her' crime? You escaped by doing what you did earlier but in reverse, returning to Mr. Holder's bedroom and then the spare room via the adjoining balconies. You then threw the maid's costume into a chest in the spare bedroom, and changed into your own clothes which you had left there. You had only one problem, namely how to explain your presence two doors away from where everyone thought you to be, but in the confusion and with so many people in the murder room no-one noticed you emerging from the 'wrong' room.” 

“You also did two things before leaving the scene of the crime, which I shall admit were clever enough. You placed the unlit lavender candle on the table behind the door such that it would be overturned when the men outside broke through, and you threw a handful of lavender stalks onto the fire.”

“Why would he do that?” Watson asked, clearly puzzled.

“Because he wanted to drive home the idea that the murder room's balcony played no part in the proceedings”, I explained. “Had the doors out to it have been open at all then the smell would have quickly dissipated. Unfortunately that move was also your undoing. In this envelope I have a sample of the ashes from that fire. A scientific analysis will show that they include the remains of lavender and indeed I see from your own hands that a single grain of the plant remains lodged in your index fingernail.”

The man looked down in horror and let out a sob.

“His own sister!” Watson exclaimed in horror.

“I talked with Mr. March earlier”, I said, “and he confirmed that Miss Bessborough was a full co-heiress to the estate. By eliminating her before she had any children he ensured that he would inherit everything, and by eliminating Mr. Holder he guaranteed that his own dark secret would never see the light of day.”

The man turned a piteous face towards us both.

“Have mercy!” he begged.

“It is for the sake of Miss Bessborough that I am offering you a way out”, I said angrily. “Personally I would like to see you swing for what you did, to suffer a fraction of what she suffered. But sign this confession, the doctor and I will witness it, and we shall only hand it to the sergeant ten minutes after your departure from this room. I am sure that you still have the gun in your room sir; it will be a fitting end that the murder weapon is used to remove the murderer.”

The man nodded dumbly, reached for the pen and scrawled something almost illegible at the bottom of the paper. Watson countersigned and watched as he lurched from the room, a broken man.

“Is it really right to let him out this way?” Watson asked as I signed my name as well. I sighed.

“Without this”, I said holding up the confession, “the case against him is dangerously weak. Even if he was prosecuted in a court of law, his lawyer would try to defend him by besmirching his sister's name and claiming that he was trying to protect her. She does not deserve such a foul epitaph. No, my friend. As at Oxford, justice and the law do not always make good bedfellows.”

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Five minutes later there was a single shot from an upstairs bedroom....

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Two days later (and my having narrowly survived my parents' visit) I got to finally spend a day with Watson. He really was the most pleasant company, and his bluff no-nonsense attitude reminded me a little of Stamford, who had always been quite willing to tell me when I was being a nuisance. I did not like that of course but I had enough sense to know that my character needed such curbs or I might end up like the frightful Randall or the insufferable Torver. A terrible thought!

I also knew that the first part of Watson's course was finishing the following summer, and that he would have to seek rooms while he did three years service to complete his degree. From his clothes I could tell that he would have to find someone to share with, as despite my father's help he clearly could afford little in the way of decent accommodation as things stood; becoming a doctor was far from cheap. It seemed like Providence!

“Your full-time course finishes next summer?” I said as we walked back to the Medical Centre. He nodded.

“It does”, he said with a sigh. “And I shall have the indubitable joy of trying to find employment and rooms on the basest of salaries.”

“You said once that they had offered you the chance to return to Northumberland and find a doctor's post there”, I said.

He was clearly surprised at my having remembered that, as if the sound of Stamford torturing that so-called musical instrument of his would ever let me forget England's most northerly county. It sounded like that time Torver had sat on one of the house-cats at home; fortunately the cat had been fine.

“I plan on staying in London”, he said to my relief. “I sold the family house when I moved here and my brother Stevie is barely started up on his course up in Edinburgh. Besides, job opportunities are so much greater down here although I shall have to quit my current lodgings once I start practice; they are part-funded by the hospital and I could not afford them on my own.”

I hesitated. I was never nervous around people as a rule, yet this was I sensed one of the most important moments in my young life.

“I was wondering”, I said slowly, “if you might consider sharing lodgings with me. I know that I am not the easiest person in the world to get along with but you seem more able to tolerate me than most of my fellow humans. At least say that you would consider it?”

He was visibly shocked and I thought for one horrible moment that he was going to say no. Then he smiled and I have never felt so utterly relieved.

“Yes”, he said. “I would definitely consider it.”

He smiled that quietly pleased smile that I would come to know so well and I thought that he really was a most handsome fellow. Even better, someone that could put up with me and my very occasional eccentricities. I was one very lucky man.

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	6. Interlude: New Builds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1875-1876. A year in the life of a London doctor-to-be.

_[Narration by Mr. John Watson, Esquire]_

It was two weeks after my return from Cambridge that it happened. I was studying quietly in the library when I heard two of my fellow students passing outside, talking to each other. I do not as a rule eavesdrop on conversations but when one's own name is mentioned then one cannot but listen in.

“I so want to slap that John Watson!”

My eyebrows shot up. Whom had I annoyed, and how?

“Why?” came the second voice.

”I don't know what happened to him up in the Fens but my God, that self-satisfied smile of his is just too much for a fellow to bear first thing of a morning!”

They passed on. I frowned. I had not been smiling any more of late.

_Had I?_

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Now I stopped to think about it my mood was definitely better these days, and I always felt a burst of happiness when I got one of Holmes's letters. So what if I did? It made studying easier and if some sourpusses did not like other people being happy, then tough luck!

That autumn the Empire was rocked by the discovery that Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli had secretly negotiated the purchase of a large share in the recently-built canal across the Suez Isthmus in Egypt – oh and he had sort of forgotten to tell anyone about it, as you do when you have just put the whole damn British Empire up as security for a loan! The political repercussions were terrible but he had survived, and I rather admired the _chutzpah_ of a Great Britain which had done everything it could short of sabotage to stop the damn canal being built and had then taken advantage of French distraction after their recent German problems to nip in and buy shares in the thing. Although I dare say that that Paris may have had a slightly different view!

Stevie came down for a few days that Christmas and he too commented on my improved mood. Somehow some bastard at the college had told him about Miss Robinson and he naturally chivvied me about being happier when I was being horizontal. I was not that bad and if he did not shut up about it then there was going to be a pop-up spider in the giraffe's suit-case when he unpacked it North of the Border!

All right, there was anyway. Waste not want not.

Over the winter of the following year I continued to exchange letters with Holmes but, coward that I was, I did not dare to raise the topic of our finding rooms together. Neither did he, but with him that could just as easily have been absent-mindedness. His course was finishing that summer so I really should have done something but a cowardly part of me was afraid of rejection. I was also distracted by several prominent professors on my own course protesting the new Medical Act of that year which granted equal qualifications to women who earned them, effectively preventing discrimination. My own views were mostly liberal but I made sure not to voice them as at least one of the professors involved was known to be quite vindictive to those who crossed him. Such behaviour was of course against college rules but we all knew how things worked in real life.

One thing I do remember from that year was the opening of the new Midland Railway between Settle Junction and Carlisle, over seventy miles of track through some of the sparsest-populated country in England. It seemed the ultimate Victorian folly, a line that the Company had not wanted to build when alternative arrangements had seemed possible after all but which they had been compelled to by parliament, and I doubted that it would ever pay. However I was soon distracted by the fact that the first part of my time at St. Bartholomew's was coming to an end and I would have to find lodgings of my own in which to continue there. Then to cap it all and without warning I faced even more immediate problems concerning the current roof over my own head, which was... well, no longer there!

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	7. Case 3: Guns And Roses ☼

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1876\. Having settled back into college life where he is again doing exceptionally well, Sherlock is asked by one of his professors to help out a gamekeeper friend who stands to lose his job for an incident of carelessness that nearly got someone killed. But who is really scheming up in the nearby Isle of Ely?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also mentioned as the case of the Davenokes of Shoreswood Hall.

_[Narration by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire]_

Foreword: This was as it happened to be my only ever investigation that took place in the Isle of Ely. This watery area did not become a county in its own right until the Local Government Act of 1888 (effective 1889) but is of a notably different character to neighbouring Cambridgeshire of which it was then a part. The name, Watson later told me, comes from the fact that before the Fens were drained, 'Eel Island' as its name implies was indeed an island. How he intends to become a doctor when his mind is cluttered with such utterly useless information, Lord alone knows!

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Almost predictably, it was my personal tutor Inglis† Atkinson who noticed it. Cambridge University had its failings – I do not have a spare few hours in which to list them all here – but one of their better decisions was to allocate each student a member of staff away from their course tutors to whom we could go with any college problems. Or if we just wanted a talk with someone who would not mark us down for whatever reason, as I knew at least two of my professors might well have done, one because the was fervently anti-Irish and resented my Hibernian parentage, and a second because I had caught him out over a factual error in class over which he had been most annoyed to have been proven wrong.

“Something has changed in you, Sherlock”, he said as he poured me a coffee (I should point out that I did not visit him _solely_ for his excellent beans). “I know that coming across two dead bodies can affect a fellow but you seem somehow.... lighter these days.”

I reddened at his perceptiveness. Yes, I had felt happier ever since I had plucked up the courage to approach Watson about our possibly taking rooms together, and frankly even a teenage schoolgirl would have blushed at my sappiness over such a simple thing. Yet even back in Oxford I had felt some sort of connection to the fellow, and for the first time in my life I actually wanted a friend.

 _Second, not first_ , my conscience unhelpfully chipped in. It really could learn to work on its timing.

“I met someone who has agreed to take rooms with me when I return to London”, I said lightly. “You know how expensive that is down there.”

I should have known that he would have seen through that as well; he knew full well that I could have afforded a house on my own with my income (my mother had indeed offered to purchase me one, but as that would have certainly been within walking distance of the family house and her terrible stories, I had wisely declined). Inglis was my favourite tutor, not just because he was closer in age to me than any of the others some of whom should have been put out to pasture years ago, but because he was a brilliant observer of humanity, something that I too wished to be. 

Although at times like these, that ability could be annoying.

“Apart from the obvious advantage of avoiding your fearsome mother's 'unique' stories”, he smiled, “I do not think that finding a room-mate would make that much of a change in you.”

“You will meet my mother at my graduation this summer”, I said firmly, “and she may even bring some of her stories with her. She is currently working on 'Thunderball', some horror about a giant rubber ball that pulls people in and then 'exhausts’ them!”

“Alas and alack!” he said with absolutely no sincerity whatsoever, “I shall miss the ceremony as I must return to London and my brother Iain. I shall _so_ miss seeing her!”

He really was terrible at times, almost as bad as Watson. That was probably why we got on so well.

“I asked you here today about your investigative abilities”, he said. “Do you know young Tudor Davenoke?”

I was about to shake my head when I remembered.

“The English student over at Higgins”, I said, distastefully. “Tall, thin and blond, also far too pompous and prideful even for that college. I had dinner there one time and he positively _commanded_ me to pass him the salt! I told him that I would not, but I could recommend where he could find a useful book on how to conduct himself at the dinner-table. He refused to talk to me for the rest of the evening; I presume that he considered that a punishment in some strange way.”

Inglis smiled.

“His family were among the first supporters of the then exiled Henry Tudor, so did very well when he became King Henry the Seventh”, he said. “He was actually born plain Thomas but changed his name when they rescued him from the workhouse – he is a distant cousin to the current Lord Davenoke - and, unfortunately, he started acquiring all his airs and graces. He especially hates it when people call him Tommy, which of course his attitude prompts many around him to do. But then that is people for you. I wondered if you might turn your investigative prowess to something that happened at his family's place, Shoreswood Hall. It is all quite convoluted, but it does involve an acquaintance of mine.”

“You are making it sound quite the challenge”, I smiled.

“You see, Iain and I had a butler called Charlton. He is about forty years of age now, a nondescript sort of fellow but good at heart and very good at his job. He had always wanted to become a gamekeeper so we helped him with that and he eventually ended up at Shoreswood. But there was an accident there this weekend and he looks set to lose his post.”

I looked sharply at him. I may have not yet acquired much in the way of human understanding, but with five brothers (four of whom I would willingly have pushed off the nearest cliff, having of course first chained them together), I had rapidly developed an ability to sense when someone was leaving something out. He looked back at me and nodded.

“Something was off when Charlton told me about it”, he said. “It took some cajoling, and when he first told me I found it hard to believe but, on reflection, I do not see why he would have lied. Young Tommy developed what they call in today's horrible modern parlance a 'man-crush' on Charlton and, as I am sure you can guess, was frankly incredulous that his overtures were rebuffed. This happened about a month before the incident with the gun.”

“What incident?” I asked.

“A gun belonging to young Peter Davenoke, heir to the place, exploded and injured him slightly”, he said. “Lord Davenoke claimed that Charlton cannot have checked it thoroughly beforehand. I do not believe that for one minute; he was always most conscientious when he worked for us, and I know that he always took great care when handling any weapon.” 

“Where is this place, Shoreswood Hall?” I asked.

“Just south of Ely so not that far from here”, he said.

I thought for a moment.

“I shall have to go there and make some inquiries”, I said reluctantly. “For one thing there is the fact that your former butler has not been sacked.”

“I would have thought that a good thing?” he said, surprised.

“For him perhaps”, I said, “but surprising nonetheless. In this day and age a servant who does anything wrong can expect instant dismissal and no reference. Yet you did not say that he had been sacked.”

“He did tell me that he fully expected to be”, he said, “but yes, I suppose that that is surprising. Of course Iain and I would find him something if that did happen; he knows that but I reminded him of it anyway.”

“I am rather afraid that you may well have to”, I said, frowning. “This is not going to be easy. If you send your friend a telegram then I will meet him in Ely.”

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I had an uneasy feeling about this matter, such that I had reiterated to Inglis that he should start looking for a new post for his friend right away. Fortunately his job at Tarleton put him in an excellent position to know many whose families employed gamekeepers, so at least that problem might be solved.

I rather took to Mr. Francis Charlton when I met him. He was as my friend had said about forty years of age, in good physical condition and with what I believe is nowadays called 'salt-and-pepper' hair. He was not attractive in the conventional sense of the word, but there was a moral rectitude about him that was quite notable. It reminded me of someone else in my life who…. no, I did not wish to raise ghosts of the past just now.

Mr. Charlton was able to explain more fully the details of what had happened at the shoot.

“Lord Davenoke had a small party of friends round for a winter shoot”, he said. “That day it was him, his brother William, myself, and His Lordship's son and heir Peter. Lord Peter's gun exploded for some reason – lucky he wasn’t hurt, all things considered – and His Lordship said that I can't have checked it properly.”

“Did you?” I asked simply.

“Definitely, sir”, he said firmly. “Lord Peter's a good sort, and if anything happened to him we'd get his brother Lord Philip who's..... not so good.”

I admired the way in which he conveyed his complete and utter disdain for the second son without putting it into words. 

“What about Mr. Tudor Davenoke?” I asked.

He reddened considerably.

“I'm not into that, sir”, he said awkwardly. “You see, I never wanted to marry because I've always been happy being single but that Mr. Tudor, he seemed to think that as he was a Davenoke I should do whatever he wanted. He didn't take it well when I told him where to shove it, if you pardon my French! And all this happening so soon after…. it smelled fishy.”

“Let us move to the next obvious question”, I said. “Given the circumstances I would have expected Lord Davenoke to have fired you instantly. Why did he not?”

The gamekeeper grinned.

“Lady Davenoke, sir”, he said. “She rules the roost around here, as we all know. She said nothing was to be done until they'd had an expert in to look over the gun. She’s very hot on weapons and all that.”

I wondered if the unseen Lady Davenoke had suspected that there had been more to this ‘accident’, coming as it had so soon after young Tudor Davenoke’s rejection by Mr. Charlton.

 _“Did_ they get an expert in?” I asked. He shook his head.

“Lord Davenoke said the other day that he'd decided to forget the whole thing”, he said. “But I'm sure he doesn't like me, and the slightest slip now will mean I'm out. I can't be on my guard all day and every day just in case.”

I sighed. It increasingly looked as if I had been right and that Inglis would have to find my client employment somewhere else. Not that I did not think I could not clear Mr. Charlton of the accusations against him, but this Lord Davenoke sounded the sort who would likely find some pretext or other to get rid of my client sooner or later.

“Lord Peter was uninjured when the gun went off?” I asked.

“Not as such, sir”, he said. “But.... well, he's always been a nervous cove. He wanted to join the Army though I doubt they'd have taken him though what with his nature, and he's never been that good with a gun. He didn’t come out the one time we had a shoot since.”

I nodded. I began to see where this was going now.

“What happened to Lord Peter's gun?” I asked.

The gamekeeper had to think about that.

“Lord Davenoke took it down to Will – the blacksmith; his place is just across the street from here – to have it destroyed”, he said. “Bad memories, I suppose.”

 _Or getting rid of the evidence_ , I thought wryly. 

I thanked him for his time and promised to continue my efforts to help him.

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Fortunately human nature is as it always has been, and likely always will be. A short trip across the road and I returned to Cambridge with a firearm, which I took over to Inglis. He had the scientific knowledge that I lacked and was able to find at least something. 

Human nature. Sigh.

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I had to call on Mr. Charlton again and ask him two more questions. He looked at me rather strangely over the first, and I was not surprised.

“Their jackets, sir?” he asked querulously.

“Theirs and your own”, I said. “Be assured that I would not ask without a good reason.”

He still looked uncertain but answered me anyway.

“Lord Davenoke had a brown jacket, his favourite one”, he said. “His brother was wearing a green thing, horrible it was. Lord Peter had on a grey jacket, his favourite. And I was wearing my green tweeds as usual.”

“What was the weather like that day?” I asked.

“Not bad for January”, he said. “We needed overcoats of course; they all had black ones of one type or another while mine was grey. But we were in the hide when the accident happened so we had all taken them off; it was stuffy in there what with the four of us.”

“Thank you”, I smiled. “I think that you are correct about Lord Davenoke wanting you gone over the incident and, whether that happens or not, it is likely best that you find somewhere else. Fortunately my tutor and your former employer Mr. Atkinson who brought me onto this case knows lots of families who need gamekeepers, and he has already found one up in Morayshire who he is confident will employ you.”

“But what about a reference, sir?” Mr. Charlton fretted. “I'm sure Lord Davenoke won't let me have one, and no-one will touch me without that.”

“That will not be a problem”, I said knowingly. “You will get your reference, I promise.”

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A few days later I returned to the Isle and this time went to Shoreswood Hall, which was most definitely a Tudor building. I say that because Inglis had been right about the connection to that troubled royal dynasty; the designer had clearly been told to get as many Tudor Roses into the design as possible! I was admitted to see the lord and lady of the house (I had carefully timed my arrival to ensure that Daphne, Lady Davenoke was present) and noted the same design was part of their family crest displayed rather garishly above the fireplace. Money did not always buy taste, it seemed.

The lady of the house very much lived up (or perhaps out beyond) my expectations, a huge Amazon at least twice the size of her insignificant little husband. Worse, she simpered at me! Ugh!

“I felt it incumbent on me to call, madam”, I said politely, “as I have come into information about the recent accident that befell your son Peter.”

David, Lord Davenoke was it turned out not good at covering his emotions. His face fell at once but fortunately for him he was slightly behind his wife so she did not notice.

“Poor Peter was so shocked by that”, she said, somehow simpering while speaking. “But how have _you_ come into that information, young sir?”

I was strongly tempted to try hiding behind her myself, with the looks that she was giving me! But this was for a friend, or at least a friend of a friend, so I steeled myself.

“I was asked by a friend of your gamekeeper to investigate whether he had indeed been responsible for the misfiring of your son's gun”, I said.

“Had the thing destroyed”, Lord Davenoke said shortly, his confidence clearly returning. “Damn dangerous!”

“It is indeed dangerous, although perhaps not to your eldest son”, I said. “You took it to the local smith and did ask him to destroy it; however he had not yet got round to so doing so I was able to purchase it from him.”

The nobleman's face had turned ashen.

“I then took it back to Cambridge where, fortunately, a tutor of mine is an expert scientist”, I said. “He examined the chamber for me and found that it had been packed with an explosive charge. I am sad to report that he found something else, too. Charred and burned, but there was a small fragment of cotton that had caught in the outer chamber of the gun when it had been closed. From the chemical analysis it had been a piece of _brown_ cotton.”

It was like one of Inglis's science experiments where you added one solution to another and waited for the explosion. Had the nobleman thought for a moment he would have realized just how unlikely what I had just said was, but shock had clearly overwhelmed him. He inched slowly towards the door while his wife worked it out.

“But Peter's jacket is grey”, she said, “and Bill has that horrible green thing that Ellen bought him. The only person there in a brown jacket that day was.....”

She had got it and turned to face her husband. The look that she gave him was positively frightening!

“Your husband wished to deter your son from following through on his wish to join the Army by frightening him away from using a gun”, I said. “He was also prompted by his foster-son’s rejection at the hands of your gamekeeper, for which he sought revenge. Your husband therefore killed two birds with one stone, as they say.”

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Holmes”, Lady Davenoke said in a tone that should have carried a health warning for its sickly sweetness. “My husband and I have some urgent matters to discuss. If you would be so kind?”

“I can see myself out”, I smiled.

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That smile may or may not have gotten wider as I heard an anguished scream before I reached the front door, but there was no-one around to see it so it did not.

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Lady Davenoke duly provided a most excellent reference for Mr Charlton who a result was able to take up his new post in Grantown-on-Spey, where he was very happy. Inglis was delighted that I had been able to help his friend. And best of all, I had another telegram from Watson when I got back to Cambridge which once again put me in a good mood.

What? I was allowed to be happy.

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_Notes:_   
_† A name given to an English-speaking person living in a Gaelic-speaking area of Scotland. Inglis's mother was from Caithness and his father was a Londoner._

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	8. Case 4: The Adventure At St. Oswald's End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1876\. History repeats itself – but when it comes to a dead man being found hanging from a tree then that calls for an investigation, even if a certain consulting detective is hundreds of miles away. Not that that stops Mr. Sherlock Holmes!

_St. Oswald's End_   
_Keynsham Square_   
_London_

_Sunday July 23rd, 1876_

_Dear Holmes,_

_Thank you for your recent letter and your congratulations on a successful conclusion to the first half of my course. I will of course have to spend a further three years completing sundry papers for the college and undertaking work experience before I am officially granted the coveted title Doctor of Medicine but at least I have secured a fixed place at a practice in Bloomsbury (the unoriginally named Bloomsbury Practice!) where I have hitherto been working for one day a week as well as covering for absences. Unfortunately there are no vacancies for full-time staff there as yet but they seem happy enough with my work thus far._

_You will see that I have acquired a new address since our last communication. I mentioned back in Cambridge that I would have to move to new lodgings when the hospital element of my course came to an end this summer. That move was however precipitated when the house that I was staying at in Cowcross Street was badly damaged in a fire caused by a stray cinder from the nearby railway line through Farringdon Station; mercifully I was absent when this calamity occurred. I have been exceptionally lucky to be housed at the family home of one my professors who lives in Keynsham Square, not far from the famous Shaftesbury Theatre. He is none other than the famous Doctor Moore Agar upon whom I was fortunate enough to make a most favourable impression by timing my visit to his house to when his daughter Jane was giving birth two weeks ahead of her time. He was truly grateful that I was there to assist his third grandson into the world and has agreed to put me up until I can find accommodation of my own, into which matter I am now looking. The child was named Hazeldine but is healthy despite that._

_This brings me (finally) to the main point of this letter. Are you still interested in sharing rooms with me? I would be looking for something as near as possible to both Harley Street and the surgery in Bloomsbury, so somewhere in either Fitzrovia or Marylebone would be admirable._

_I wish you luck at your own graduation this coming Monday and my sincere congratulations for having completed your course in four years instead of the usual six. Stamford was most envious when I mentioned that to him as he still has two years to go at Bargate; I did worry that there might be certain repercussions for him after what happened there but fortunately there have been none._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Doctor John H. Watson_

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_Tarleton College, Reference #875HOL,_   
_Grantchester,_   
_Cambridge_

_Friday July 28th, 1876_

_Dear Watson,_

_Thank you for your letter. I am sorry for the untimely delay in responding but Mother descended on me and insisted on taking me for a short holiday in Skegness of all places to celebrate the end of my course. She is as I have said before a force of nature and I always find it easier to give in to her demands; mercifully she forgot to bring any of her stories with her for which oversight I shall be offering up extra prayers in church this weekend! I arrived back yesterday evening utterly exhausted and read your letter, so my congratulations on your own achievements thus far._

_Yes, I would be delighted to take rooms with you. I plan to set up a business in London, my only proviso being the place that we choose is moderately central. Your chosen area is acceptable and as you are in the vicinity I would suggest that you continue the search. Regrettably I shall not be in the capital until the end of next month as Mother wants to visit some friends in the South of Scotland after my graduation ceremony; the poor souls are unaware of the maelstrom that is about to descend on them! For which they would have my sympathy except I am to be dragged along with her on this_ impromptu _Caledonian caper! Once I have a definitive date for my arrival in the capital I shall of course communicate it to you._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Mr. S. A. Holmes, Esquire_

_Postscriptum: Are you legally allowed to call yourself by the title 'doctor' as of yet? I do not know how these things work._

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_Tarleton College, Reference #875HOL ,_   
_Grantchester,_   
_Cambridge_

_Monday July 31st, 1876_

_Dear Watson,_

_The graduation ceremony was today and I do not think that I have ever been more embarrassed in my young life! Most students got to walk across the stage and accept their certificates with polite applause from the audience._ Most _students. Only one had to suffer the mortification of his own mother whooping and cheering as if she were at one of those infernal football matches! I am so glad that I am leaving this place, never to return!_

_I enclose a list of the places that Mother plans to visit and the approximate dates that we shall be there. Unless of course someone warns the people that she is coming and they decide to flee to the hills. I know that I would!_

_Still blushing,_

_Mr. S. A. Holmes, Esquire_

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_St. Oswald's End_   
_Keynsham Square_   
_London_

_Wednesday August 2nd, 1876_

_Dear Holmes,_

_Oh dear! Poor you, having to endure that at your own graduation. I hope that you are surviving the trip to the cold North; the fact that it is summer might perhaps make it more bearable. Technically speaking I am not supposed to call myself Doctor Watson until I get handed the scroll confirming my_ Medicinae Doctor _but the hospital has advised me that they generally turn a blind eye to graduates who use the phrase earlier than they should, so a doctor indeed am I!_

_Doctor Agar's house is building up to a ball this Saturday as it is St. Oswald’s Day. I should have mentioned that his son and I became friends because he too comes from Northumberland, from Cornhill right on the Border across the Tweed from the Scottish town of Coldstream. Doctor Agar is a patriotic Northumbrian; he even flies the red-and-yellow flag in his back garden and oftentimes goes on at length about how the Scots stole the old northern part of our ancient English kingdom then made its largest city their capital, Edinburgh. Fortunately neither he nor any of his family play the pipes, Scottish or Northumberland, so at least I am spared that horror!_

_As well as his younger son Preston who is currently visiting his maternal grandmother in Brittany for a month, Doctor Agar has three other children two of whom are home for the great day; more than one servant has gossiped that Jane, whose new arrival I helped coax into the world, is likely playing up a slight relapse in her recovery to avoid having to come. His younger daughter Sophia is married with two daughters and is pleasant enough. Both the girls are under three but I do not much like her husband, a Mr. Morgan Foliot. He is half-Welsh, half-French, and doubly hates us English. And he has far too high an opinion of himself. The doctor’s elder son Rupert is also here; he is one of those anaemic-looking blond boys (I probably should not call him that as he is nearly thirty!) who always seem totally bored with life. He spends most of his time with his books and does not seem to actually_ do _anything for a living. He is also a little too smug for my liking especially since as with Mr. Foliot I see no reason for such an attitude._

_In a rather morbid act (in my opinion) Doctor Agar has designated a tree with various gifts for members of the household on it in memory of the original Oswald who, it was said, has his various body parts hung in a tree after being defeated by the mighty King Penda at the battle of Oswestry (Oswald’s Tree) in six hundred and forty two. He rather inconsiderately mentioned his plans over dinner the other day and I almost lost my appetite, but fortunately there was chocolate blancmange for dessert so I battled through._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Doctor John H. Watson_

_Postscriptum: I forgot to mention; this I suppose at least explains the curious house name._

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_St. Oswald's End_   
_Keynsham Square_   
_London_

_Sunday August 6th, 1876_

_Dear Holmes,_

_If the general post does what it is supposed to do, then this should reach your stop in Hawick on the same day that you and your mother arrive. I do hope so for the events of last night were quite shocking! They talk of history repeating itself but…. well!_

_The ball proceeded as planned up to eight o' clock when Doctor Agar led the family out into the back garden for a moment of remembrance around the tree. I should have added that it was a very small gathering; a few close friends including the local parish priest who had agreed to say a few words in memory of the battle. Except that when we got to the tree we found there was rather more than the small present boxes on its branches. Sometime during the evening it too, like its namesake in Shropshire, had acquired a dead body!_

_Mrs. Foliot not unsurprisingly fainted and everyone was swiftly ushered indoors, Doctor Agar posting three servants to keep watch over the body until the police arrived. A Sergeant Belvedere came within the half-hour and after the body had been hauled down both Doctor Agar and I examined him. His wallet revealed him to have been one Mr. Arthur Byland but apart from the general clutter one might expect a young fellow to have had on his person the only thing of note was a small folding cameo brooch which contained a lock of hair and a drawing of a lady on one side. Not a professional one; possibly one the young man had done himself. It had the name 'Polly' written on the back._

_We estimated the time of death to be between six-thirty and seven-thirty, more probably closer to the former which tallied with the servants having finished placing the presents on the tree shortly after six. The cause of death was a single bullet to the heart; the man had been shot at close range, possibly with the gun pressed right into his body which would also explain why nothing was heard. The whole affair was quite shocking; we have no idea why this man apparently came here to get killed and ended up like poor old King Oswald up a tree!_

_In somewhat less dramatic news my search for lodgings continues, but no luck as yet._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Doctor John H. Watson_

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_Nonsuch House,_   
_Hawick,_   
_Roxburghshire_

_Wednesday August 9th, 1876_

_Dear Watson,_

_Your news was most interesting but you appear to have omitted several pertinent items of information. Please supply the following in your next missive:_   
_1) How much money was in the victim's wallet and in what form?_   
_2) Is it known as to how he gained access to the garden?_   
_3) Did anyone leave the house between six and eight o' clock?_   
_4) How did the gentlemen of the house react to the discovery?_   
_5) Please describe the state and quality of the dead man’s clothes._

_Of course the reason for his death is fairly obvious but as to why he had to die in that particular way is more troubling. I look forward to hearing from you shortly._

_It has rained for the past eight days. I am wet._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Mr. S. A. Holmes, Esquire_

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_St. Oswald's End_   
_Keynsham Square_   
_London_

_Friday August 11th, 1876_

_Dear Holmes,_

_I suppose that I should have foreseen your interest in this peculiar matter. I did not approach Sergeant Belvedere who seemed quite prepared to suspect_ me _at one stage, but Constable Billington was much more amenable especially after I told him of your successes in Oxford and Cambridge. I can answer your questions as follows:_  
 _1) The wallet contained six shillings, a threepenny bit, a penny and three farthings. There were no notes, which was perhaps curious. There were two bills (unpaid), one for a clothier and one for laundry, totalling just under five shillings. There was also a receipt for a hat – a medium quality one for general wear from the price and description - of which there was no sign._  
 _2) There is an access path that runs along the backs of the houses on this side of the square and a door in the back wall which is usually unlocked. Constable Billington assumes that the man came through there but as it is a cut-through for the nearby railway station it is in fairly common use, especially as this occurred near the end of the rush hour. The path from the door to the tree is loose chippings so there were no prints to be had. Thus far no-one has come forward about seeing anyone or anything suspicious at the time._  
 _3) Only two people definitely came into the garden during the times you specified. Doctor Moore Agar came with his steward to check that all was going to plan at around seven o' clock but they did not approach the tree. However Mr. Rupert Agar’s statement stated that he was alone in the library between six-thirty and nearly eight o' clock, and there is a door out to the garden from there._  
 _4) Unfortunately I was taking more care of the body than observing reactions (apart from that of Mrs. Foliot). However I do recall that both Mr. Rupert Agar and the priest (a Reverend Iain Blackford) both looked quite pale. The reverend smelled slightly of alcohol, by the way._  
 _5) I do not understand the relevance of this question but I personally thought that his clothes were rather shabby with the exception of his shoes, which were of high quality. Possibly at one time he had had a watch as the loop where one would have been attached was partly worn through but there was none on him when we found him._

_One other odd thing has emerged from inquiries made thus far. The local stationmaster remembers a gentleman roughly matching Mr. Byland's description alighting from the 6.5 train (a semi-fast suburban, Hitchin to King's Cross), the station being about ten minutes walk away. He remembered that the fellow did have a hat and was also carrying a tattered brown briefcase or something similar, yet there was no sign of either item in or around the tree. Since the fellow left without crossing to the other platform as most people do, he could well have been heading for the cut-through._

_So who done it?_

_Yours in anticipation,_

_Doctor John H. Watson_

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_Nonsuch House,_   
_Hawick,_   
_Roxburghshire_

_Tuesday August 15th, 1876_

_Dear Watson,_

_We shall be moving on to our stop in Gullane tomorrow. It has rained every day that we have been in Scotland; I am surprised that the country does not sink. I am still wet! To add to my woes, my breakfast plate yesterday contained something dark and unpleasant that was very firmly pushed to one side. There are some horrors that even I am not prepared to face._

_Talking of horrors, Mother is threatening to buy herself a kilt! God take me now!_

_You should recommend to Constable Billington that he may find it interesting to take a look at the recent collapse of the Cornubian Bank. I believe that at least one member of the household will be shown to have had an interest in that institution._

_Once we are in Haddingtonshire† I should have a definitive date for my arrival in London._

_Yours soggily,_

_Mr. S. A. Holmes, Esquire_

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_St. Oswald's End_   
_Keynsham Square_   
_London_

_Tuesday August 15th, 1876_

_Dear Holmes,_

_I hope that this either catches you in Hawick or is forwarded to you in Gullane. A most interesting development in the case occurred last night. Doctor Moore Agar had what I can only describe as a blazing row with his son and heir Rupert, their voices raised so loudly that we – myself, and Mr. and Mrs. Foliot - could hear them even from across the corridor. The boy shouted that he no longer needed his father’s support as he had recently done very well by getting his money out of an institution just days before it collapsed. I would assume that he was referring to the recent and unhappy collapse of the Cornubian Bank which has left many West Country investors ruined. It really was quite unseemly, the way in which he was gloating._

_This happened on Monday night and there was a further development this morning which caused me to have to resume this letter. It seems that the boy may have forged his father’s name on his original investments into that institution which is of course a criminal offence. His smugness might not be as justified as he thinks - hopefully._

_I shall write again if anything else of import occurs._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Doctor John H. Watson_

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_Telegram to Mr. S. A. Holmes c/o The Extra Hole, Gullane, Haddingtonshire_

_Wednesday August 16th, 1876_

_How the blazes did you know?_

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_The Extra Hole_   
_Gullane_   
_Haddingtonshire_

_Saturday August 19th, 1876_

_Dear Watson,_

_You should advise Constable Billington to check all gloves belonging to Mr. Rupert Agar._

_I shall be in London next Saturday. If you would care to meet me off the train arriving to King’s Cross Station at 6.2 p.m. we may discuss the case then._

_It stopped raining this morning. For almost a quarter of an hour!_

_Yours still soggily,_

_Mr. S. A. Holmes, Esquire_

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_St. Oswald's End_   
_Keynsham Square_   
_London_

_Monday August 21st, 1876_

_Dear Holmes,_

_Constable Billington arrested Mr. Rupert Agar today for the murder of the dead man, who turned out in fact to have been a Mr. Alan Selborne. Blood spatters were found on a pair of gloves that he had thrown to the back on his drawer, the discovery of which caused him to break down and confess all. His father has insisted that the moneys he made be returned to the bank so it can be shared between the ruined investors; it will be precious little given the extent of the collapse but I suppose that every little helps._

_How on earth did you know? I cannot wait until Saturday!_

_Yours in extreme impatience,_

_Doctor John H. Watson_

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_The Extra Hole_   
_Gullane_   
_Haddingtonshire_

_Wednesday August 23rd, 1876_

_Dear Watson,_

_You will have to._

_I do with you had not used that phrase, as I am compelled to tell you that 'Every Little Helps' was the title of a work by Mother last year that involved the Greek Titans using heroes half their size as sexual aids. Look, if I have to suffer that image then do do you!_

_I assume that you have had a strong drink after reading that. Just to let you know that she is currently working on the sequel, 'Titanic!'._

_It is now sleeting. Horizontally! Mother not only bought that kilt but had herself photographed in it. I am so happy that we cannot be deported from Scotland – at least I hope that we cannot!_

_Yours in desperation,_

_Mr. S. A. Holmes, Esquire_

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_[Narration by Doctor John Watson, M.D.]_

It had been a little over a year since I had seen Holmes and I stood behind the ticket barrier at King's Cross Station feeling somewhat impatient. Fortunately the Great Northern Railway proved as punctual as ever and the up express pulled in an impressive two seconds early. Its load of passengers disgorged, I looked out for Holmes's unruly thatch and soon spotted him. Once he had handed in his ticket we shook hands.

“I cannot wait to get you back to the house to find out how you worked the case out”, I said fervently. He smiled.

“Mother insisted on booking me into the Station Hotel here for a few days”, he said. “Fortunately she changed at Peterborough so she could descend on some luckless friends in Norfolk; I was a little tempted to telegraph them a warning but I am not overly fond of them so I desisted. I shall check in, then we can discuss the case.”

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The dining-room at the Station Hotel was opulent and I felt out of place in my relatively poor clothes. Holmes ordered coffee and bacon (of course!) and I had enough sense to wait until he had at least had his first drink. 

“The case hinged on the recent collapse of the Cornubian Bank”, he explained looking at his coffee-cup as if he was seriously considering a marriage proposal. “Even before our crossed letters you mentioned that Mr. Rupert Agar had done well financially in recent times. Anyone who sold out of Cornubian shares rather like those who did the same for the South Seas Company a century and a half back would have done extremely well.”

“But where did poor Mr. Selborne fit into this?” I asked.

He downed his second coffee and looked almost mournfully into the empty cup. Wondering how he could drink scalding hot liquid – my own cup was as yet untouched – I signed to the waitress for a further carafe. That earned me a happy smile from my friend. He downed another cup straight from the carafe – his innards had to be flame-proof, I thought – before continuing.

“The key to making money from these things is to sell at the right moment”, he said. “I would conjecture that Mr. Selborne was in a position to know that information and he unwisely communicated it to his friend Mr. Rupert Agar, who then shared it with his own friends and planned a mass selling of shares on the same day at the exact same hour. The effect was of course to cause a run on the bank and to ruin many people, including Mr. Selborne.”

“Mr. Selborne somehow became aware of Mr. Rupert Agar’s perfidy, and I would hazard that he threatened to go to the villain’s father over the matter. There must have been proof of what had been done for otherwise why go to the extent of murdering him? It was one wealthy well-connected man’s word against that of a ruined man. No, Mr. Selborne had some physical proof – remember that he had that folder at the station that subsequently disappeared - and alas! that sealed his doom.”

“Mr. Rupert Agar most probably agreed to confess his dealings to his father and to return what moneys he could provided Mr. Selborne came to the house ‘to stand with him'. He admitted him through the back garden probably spinning some yarn that he did not want his disgrace to be witnessed by anyone else. Of course once he had his quarry at the back of the garden he shot him; the sound of the gun was muffled because it was pressed against his victim. That in itself was indicative; it implied that the victim knew his killer well enough to allow him to stand close. Mr. Agar then hung the man on the tree.”

“But why did he do that?” I asked, curiously,. “Why not just dispose of the body?”

“The scene of the crime was against that”, he said. “Remember that you yourself said that the passageway that runs along the back was well-used and busy at that time of an evening, and he could not move any further into the gardens without the risk that someone talking a walk from the house might have seen him. No, the false identity was his best chance.”

“Constable Billington said that Mr. Selborne‘s landlady had received a note from him saying that he had to take a sudden trip to America and would send for his things later”, I told him. “I suppose that you are right.”

He looked most offended.

“Of course I am right!” he said firmly. “Which brings me to my other news. I believe that I may have found us some lodgings available from next week. Or more accurately my father has, and from his description they look suitable.”

“Where are they?” I asked.

“Montague Street, near Russell Square and the British Museum”, he said. “The landlady is a Mrs. MacAndrew; a dour Scotswoman but a good cook or so I am told. It is just over a mile from your Harley Street, closer still to your own practice in Bloomsbury and the terms are reasonable enough. Mrs. MacAndrew says we can go there any time to take a look and if we are satisfied to move in at our convenience.”

It sounded good and there was only the slightest feeling of wariness as I agreed to go with him to the place tomorrow. I was moving into my own place for the first time in my life and I would be sharing with a man that I barely knew. But all those problems lay ahead of me for now and I could not wait to see what the new place would be like. My first real home!

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_Notes:_   
_† Now East Lothian_

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